


The Dioscuri

by Ark



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Timelines, Angst, Brainwashing, Double the Winter Soldier, Established Relationship, M/M, Men in love forever, Russia, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 21:50:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2363357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark/pseuds/Ark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wind whips Steve’s hair and ice stings his eyes. The railing breaks and Bucky falls screaming from the train. Fading from sight, he still reaches for Steve, and Steve does the only thing that he can do: he pushes off from the train and dives after.</p><p>An AU where Steve and Bucky become Winter Soldiers together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dioscuri

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [reserve](http://reserve.tumblr.com) for listening to me read the first half of this in a car. that's what friends are for.
> 
> i'm on [tumblr](http://et-in-arkadia.tumblr.com) and love hellos and you.
> 
>    
>  _THE DIOSKOUROI (or Dioscuri) were twin star-crowned gods whose appearance on the rigging of a ships was believed to portent escape from a storm. They were also gods of horsemanship and protectors of guests and travellers._
> 
>  _The twins were born as mortal princes, sons of the Spartan queen Leda, one being fathered by Zeus the other by her husband Tyndareus. Because of their generosity and kindness to man they were apotheosed into gods at death. At first Polydeukes alone, being a son of Zeus, was offered this gift, but he agreed only on condition that his half-twin Kastor share the honour. Zeus assented, but the pair had to spend alternate days in Hades to appease the Fates and the Gods of the Dead._ [[x](http://www.theoi.com/Ouranios/Dioskouroi.html)]

Wind whips Steve’s hair and ice stings his eyes. The railing breaks and Bucky falls screaming from the train. Fading from sight, he still reaches for Steve, and Steve does the only thing that he can do: he pushes off from the train and dives after.

* * *

Steve’s fall is more controlled, if a plunge from a speeding train can be that. Bucky thrashes against the wind, fights it, but Steve is a forward arrow. Following so soon, Steve is able to catch and grasp the outstretched fingers in midair. 

They fall; they’re falling, impact in seconds, in the snowy endless white. Their hands clasp and hold, and won’t let go. 

Bucky shakes his head but smiles at Steve, sad and sweet. 

There’s no real way to prepare to hit ground. Steve can only think that he has to shield Bucky’s more fragile body, and tries to get underneath him. Then they hit.

* * *

It’s the worst pain Steve has ever felt. Becoming Captain America was easier. He wonders if he’s dead and in hell for his sins, hopes he’s dead, because this pain while living is unendurable. The distance from train to icy ravine is enough to break Captain America in half, serum or no. He has cushioned Bucky’s crash besides.

With teeth clenched and tears streaming, Steve knows that he’s not dead yet. He can taste snow falling on his tongue. His eyes work but he doesn’t want to open them. He knows that his left leg is crushed. He can feel it. He can’t feel it. He keeps his eyes closed, until Bucky moans.

It’s a sound of such excruciation that Steve finds a way to hurt more. But Bucky is alive. Bucky is moaning. Bucky is breathing on the ground beside him. 

For forty-eight hours Steve does what he can to keep him that way. Steve has only body heat and his healing body, which sluggishly knits itself together, save for the leg. 

The Russians come after Steve has given up hope, dug him and Bucky an icy grave to lie down in forever. He dug it with his fingernails.

Men drag them off to shouting and not-so-gentle handling, but all Steve can be is relieved. 

They’re three-quarters frozen and Bucky’s breathing is shallow and ragged, a whisper of breath. Steve’s eyes are open because his eyelashes are caked with ice. The Russians are their friends. Allies. They make it so that he doesn’t have to watch Bucky die. He thanks them in Russian.

They’re bundled into a warm ambulance for transport. Steve keeps hold of Bucky’s hand. The other hand is lost. At Bucky’s wrist, a pulse beats sluggishly.

Safe, thinks Steve. The ice begins to thaw. He goes to sleep.

* * *

Doctors and scientists and military men examine them. The best of the best spared from the front lines pour in to the new project. Steve’s leg is unusable, and he undergoes an operation for a formidable metal replacement. Bucky’s arm receives the same treatment. 

Against all the odds they survive. Steve’s wounds close fast. Astonishingly, so do Bucky’s. It turns out that German science altered them both. They wake up in close-set twin hospital beds and reach for each other across the space.

Before they are strong again, the Russians hook them up to a series of machines. Light and heat floods Steve’s brain, and when he comes through it’s hard to remember much of anything from the other side. He remembers Bucky, because Bucky is there right next to him, writhing under the light, and he knows that Bucky is his love and his life. This is enough.

When they awaken their brothers come to fetch them. They are clothed in fine uniforms and embraced. They learn that a terrible accident occurred. They are loyal and beloved members of the Red Army and its cause. They do not question this; it feels correct. 

They learn Russian, never asking why they forgot it. Language returns slowly. Fighting is more natural. A week after the fall they are back in training, and the week after that they are drilling lines of men for war.

He and Bucky are a pair, and the Army encourages their partnership. The Generals confer with them both and declare their faith. 

They are a testament to the glory of Russia, and omens of victory, say the Generals. The soldiers are deferential and take orders well. The scientists are good enough to keep enhancing their metal limbs and abilities. Steve and Bucky are always grateful for the opportunity to be of better service. 

* * *

When they are ready for the field they ask for the most dangerous missions and receive them. 

They perform these with either surgical precision or an explosive, showy storm of destruction. Sometimes they slip into a house like phantoms, to kill one man; sometimes they blow up a village. Carnage is routine but necessary, the grim stuff of war, and how best to end it. 

They aid in the Red Army advances, and word starts to spread. Tales are told of two men, half-machine, say some, half-monster, say others, who come at night. They call them the Dioscuri, after the Greek warrior twins, terrible in their revenge. Inseparable in life and death and starlight. The name sticks, until even the Generals use it. 

They have other designations, of course. They have many aliases and coded handles. They are unsure of the names they were born with, but that is not strange for spies. “Steve” and “Bucky” are only ever said in the tent, in the tremulous night.

The Army is content to keep their most decorated officers shrouded in mystery. There’s no propaganda about them, no files the Government can recall, and curious journalists who chase the story are persuaded otherwise.

It is more than enough that the Dioscuri are a growing legend. They help cities fall faster, as citizens and soldiers flee at the mention of their approach. 

Steve finds that he appreciates not being a spectacle. He and Bucky have their own tent, their own world, and at night they are left alone. No person would think to question them. 

Nights are when he and Bucky recover from the day. They hold each other and blow each other and fuck; they trade off roles. Some nights they are savage; on others tender and slow, and there’s no telling which way they’ll go. 

They can come back covered in blood and spend their remaining hours kissing lazily. They can return from a standard Officers’ meeting and tear the tent apart. 

In the tent, sharing their bodies, they speak in low, accented English. It sounds familiar and foreign to their ears. They know they spent years as operatives in America, deep undercover. The time is of fascination to both of them, since neither can remember. The lost years haunt them.

Bits and pieces of a different world show behind Steve’s eyes sometimes, in the space between awake and dreaming. 

English feels easier, and safer, so when they are alone, when sweat runs down their bodies and their foreheads press together, they whisper English words.

They’ve read the classified briefs, the ones prepared for them. Steve can only credit his county for its foresight. The Americans are a useful ally but cannot be trusted in the longterm. Russia could not allow them to build out a program of supersoldiers. The results would be catastrophic, the clever Generals reasoned. 

So they’d sent Steve as their agent to sabotage the Captain America project. His training guaranteed that he was chosen for the program, and received the top-secret procedure. The unexpected Hydra attack on Dr. Erskine saved Steve the trouble of arranging it himself. 

After some listless touring for American propaganda, Steve crossed to ocean to rendezvous with his partner. Bucky had infiltrated a Hydra fortress on a mission to retrieve Russian POWs. Most of the other men were Allies, so they liberated them also, and upon their triumphant return to the front they were accounted heroes. 

Soon after, scheduled to return from cover, a deadly train accident forced the Red Army’s hand. A retrieval squad was sent, the heroes retrieved. Here the report ends.

Steve and Bucky have read these files many times, passing paper back and forth, searching for hints of their lost past in pages. They have the same reaction, that something isn’t quite right, that the words don’t read right. They want to edit, and add. Their brains rebel at the margins.

They know nothing more than what the reports say, and what their comrades tell them, and what the media confirms. Steve saw the headlines after he woke up, before they hid the newspapers from him. 

The Americans declared their icon Captain America lost, gone down in patriotic battle at the side of his best friend and fellow soldier, Sergeant Bucky Barnes. The American flag was to fly at half-mast across the country and at its outposts across the globe. Steve flinched, and they took the newspaper away. 

That night he lies in the tent next to Bucky, holding onto him. Wondering at his past tenacity. Steve knows that he is capable of many feats. But when he tries to imagine himself a spy slipping behind American lines, he doesn’t get much further. His mind is a blank book that begs for a sketch. 

He cannot fathom that he was ever such an adept agent -- he is not restrained. All his strength is in rousing speeches and in brash fearlessness. Bucky is better at keeping to the shadows and playing coy in the light, but neither of them are subtle enough to pass unnoticed, thinks Steve. 

Yet the long-term plan has worked perfectly. It is impossible to deny the Army’s brilliance. America believes their Captain gone, while he works for Russian efforts. Steve does not remember any other time, not while his eyes are open.

* * *

They tip the Allies towards victory. Russia and America emerge equally glut with glory. Europe is decimated between their crush. 

Steve and Bucky pack up the tent. They are present at peace-signings amongst the ranks of men. They blend in. They are present when treaties are sworn. They are there to oversee the implementation of order after madness.

Russia moves into Europe. Later, Steve and Bucky are called back to Moscow. They go.

* * *

For a short time -- the finest in Steve’s life -- they’re left alone. The world is in chaos, is in flux. It never rests. But partitioned Europe is crawling with Americans and they learn that they've earned some leave. 

Steve and Bucky take a small flat in the big city, and they go under. The Army arranges it. For this time of triumph, no longer needed, they’re allowed to disappear. They’re decommissioned.

They live a simple life; it feels correct. They have ample savings to sustain them. Steve draws, discovering it a sudden, violent passion. Bucky tends to their living space, every item inspected and secured, their food prepared at night by his hand. 

Later at night, as in the tent, they come together. Now they have a broad bed to support them, and no need to worry about the noise. They fit as easily as ever, slotting up like puzzle pieces missing all the rest.

It’s Bucky who brings it up first: “I think -- I think I’m failing.”

With Bucky in the circle of his arms, thrumming after orgasm, electric and alight, Steve can’t believe it. “How could you?”

“I -- I remember, sometimes,” says Bucky, “and I can’t shake free.” He looks at Steve, furtive: the glance he uses to sweep a room for listening devices. “I must be remembering wrong.”

Steve whispers it into the back of Bucky’s neck. No doubt there’s several devices in the room. Maybe it’s for the better if they forget. “Sometimes I do, too,” says Steve. 

They discuss it further without vocals.

Two hours later, men in masks take them to twin chairs made especially for them. They sit down and they grasp hands, and they look into the light.

* * *

The Cold War is a terrible, futile thing.

* * *

In a dense forest, the battle over a wavering border rages. On each side, men and women call themselves rebel, call themselves patriot. It’s hard to tell the difference. It always is. This description fits most conflicts that Steve’s been in.

A skirmish with a man clothed in iron. After seventy years with a metal leg, Steve meets his match. The man in armor is an ancient ideal upgraded, bristling with technology and implied superiority. Their clash is spectacular.

Steve still has the metal disks he is famous for throwing, has his metal leg, has the means to destroy if he tries. Instead he wrestles the iron man to the ground. It’s not protocol, but he has to know who fought him to a standstill.

He tears off the mask. Underneath, Howard Stark stares back at Steve, unafraid. Then they both blink and it’s a younger man, with Howard’s cheekbones, and his stubborn pout and his sharp, intelligent gaze. 

He looks right up at Steve and he says, without hesitation, “Your name is Steven Grant Rogers,” and he jams a small blinking device against Steve’s chest that short-circuits his brain and fries his body. 

Steve flops over the man, muscles made into jelly, his face twisted in a rictus, his mouth open on a silent scream.

The man in the metal suit with Howard’s eyes rolls him into the dust. “Yeah, sorry about that, Cap,” he says, binding Steve’s wrists into electronic cuffs. “Had to be sure you’d come quietly.”

If Steve could move he’d shake his head. But he can’t do anything, he’s still paralyzed, can only gaze in hope and fear at what he sees over the man’s shoulder. A rustle of branches in the treeline.

“Step away from him, nice and slow,” says Bucky’s voice. “Let me see your hands.”

“I’m afraid I have zero intention of doing so, Sergeant Barnes,” answers the man. He stays crouched by Steve, his back to the voice. “But if you are moved to surrender prematurely, we of course have a place for you in the helicopter. That would be the best way to go about this. That’d be swell.”

Steve and Bucky have been in hundreds of firefights, and this one should be no different. The man is clearly delusional yet oddly driven and well-equipped for a field agent. It’s not the first time the Americans have tried to send teams after them. In the ‘80s, their intelligence discovered that the Dioscuri fit the profile of their lost men. It’s no surprise that America would make another attempt now, with Steve and Bucky put back to use by the Russian president.

Steve doesn’t like the current president much, but he knows his duty. He likes hostage stand-offs even less. Bucky is, quite frankly, terrible at them, too impatient to negotiate. 

“I thought you might say something like that,” says Bucky, “so I brought company.” He steps through the trees into their circle of vision, dragging his own hostage. 

His metal arm holds a middle-aged, gentle-looking man with glasses knocked askew by a blow. He appears utterly incongruous on the field of battle. Bucky has the gun pressed to his temple, steady as a statue.

“Goddammit, Banner,” snaps the man in the suit. “You were supposed to stay in the helicopter. Where’s --”

“One more word, and I kill him,” says Bucky, calm. “Step away from my partner.”

“I’m sorry,” says the iron man. Steve can’t move, but he can see the man’s face, and he looks it: sorry. “We’ve come too far. We’ll be bringing you in.” 

He stays crouched by Steve, and he starts to take parts of his suit off and affix them to Steve’s body. He touches buttons on his arm, and Steve jerks into a sitting position, his movements automated. He moves like a puppet on strings.

“Do not test me.” Bucky is coldly furious, shoving the man before him now as a shield. 

“Wow, you boys really are everything they said you’d be. And more. They didn’t say you’d still look twenty-three. That’s only been speculation until now. Magnificent.” The man keeps working, though his eyes are on Bucky and linger on Bucky’s hostage.

“I’m going to count to five, and then this man is dead,” says Bucky in a tone that Steve knows too well. Decided and deadly, diamond-hard. “You can prevent that by stepping aside.”

“Don’t listen to him, Tony.” It’s torn from the smaller man’s throat. He sags against Bucky, like the fight’s long since gone out of him. “Finish the mission.”

“Thank you, doctor, but I don’t need your perm--”

Bucky fires. The doctor slumps over in his arms, then is cast to the ground. 

It’s a quick death but an awful one to view. Steve can’t open his mouth, but he wants to cry out. Beside him, the man in armor makes a sound of negation and looks away.

That wasn’t Bucky’s intention. “Do I have your attention now?” He stalks forward, handgun on Tony, a clear shot.

Before he can pull the trigger, Tony makes Steve reach out for him. Steve loops his arms around the suit. With bound hands this necessitates a full-on embrace. He puts his cheek against Tony’s. Bucky halts.

“You son of a bitch,” says Tony, tears in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“That,” says Bucky, keeping his arm steady, “that was your call.” 

Steve stares at Bucky, trying to telegraph a better way forward. He’s capable of blinking, but just that. It doesn’t matter. Bucky is too caught up to see him properly anymore. 

Bucky sees only mission and target. The callous killing of the doctor proves that he is operating in war-mode, quick to sacrifice. This is wrong. Steve misses their retirement down to his bones. They are too old for this, no matter how young they look.

“Remove your gadgets and let him go,” says Bucky, aiming for a shot -- like he’ll take one through Steve’s torso to get at Tony, and Steve knows then, knows absolutely, that Bucky will. 

He’s calculated Steve’s survival against the risk of this man getting his hands on Steve, and made a decision. His eyes are dull with the mission. Bucky’s decided they may not make it out of this one, and the target has to be secured first. “This is your final warning.” 

The man Steve is gripping sounds contemptuous. “I’m no longer negotiating with you, Sergeant Barnes.” 

He makes Steve get to his feet, arms wrapped around the metal suit. Up close, Steve can see that his eyes are bright with unshed tears, and keep flicking to the bloody crumpled figure on the field. Steve wishes that he could look away from the man’s face. 

Steve knows that he should be as brave as the doctor had been. If he could speak, he knows he should tell Bucky to finish the mission, take out the enemy at all costs. 

Yet something here is off in a way that electrifies all his doubts. This man doesn’t feel like an enemy; he acts as though he believes that he is rescuing Steve from his own battlefield. As though Steve needs saving from himself.

Steve leans against Tony, unresisting, unsure of his side. His head is spinning and it’s full of noise, full-up with overlapping voices. Some mobility returns to his numbed limbs but all he does is blink to clear his watery vision.

His eyes go round and he opens his mouth to scream for Bucky, but Tony notices and shocks him again. Bucky, watching them, sweating, his face terrible, doesn’t see it happen. Bucky doesn’t get a warning. 

The body of the dead man is contorting on the ground. It rips itself apart, growing in height and mass while Steve watches, horror-struck. 

It grows and grows into a towering monster, green as bile, its face an enraged deviation of the gentle doctor’s. The thing is eight feet of roaring fury. Bucky turns to the sound of it too late. 

“Oh, you’re beautiful,” Tony murmurs. 

Bucky gets off three shots that bounce off the thick hide to no damage, but serve to further anger the creature. This appears to be an extremely bad idea. 

He rampages towards Bucky, and smashes one enormous fist against Bucky’s chest. Bucky sails across the field towards them, and it’s the last sight Steve sees before they all go down in a collision of limbs. Darkness is a welcome relief. 

* * *

They come to in a bright, modern lab. They are bound in a new set of chairs, with electrodes attached all over. 

The man from the battlefield is standing at a control panel made of glass, wearing jeans and a faded concert t-shirt. His name is Tony Stark, Steve knows. Steve has read about him. Steve remembers Howard Stark’s face from a time he shouldn’t, and from the mission where he and Bucky killed him.

They try to fight against the chairs, but they’re strapped in with cuffs and leg-braces they can’t break. Bucky is wild-eyed, more afraid than he’s ever looked. Steve knows how he feels.

“Welcome back, boys,” says a soft voice. The murdered doctor who turned into a monster steps out of the shadows to join Tony at the console. He appears wan but quite alive, and Bucky shouts at the sight of him. Steve fights the chair harder than ever.

“Do you want to do the honors, Dr. Banner?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Dr. Banner answers. “This one’s all yours, Tony.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your input,” Tony says, then smiles. “But you’re right, this is mostly due to my genius.” He glances over at Steve and Bucky strapped into their chairs. “Well now. Shall we see who you are?”

He slides his finger across the glass in a decisive swipe, like flicking a switch. Steve’s body becomes a supernova, and all he can see are stars.

* * *

Steve and Bucky lie side-by-side on twin beds. They reach out for each other across the space, but their hands are bound.

Reaching is the only element that hasn’t changed. Everything else is scrambled.

Tony Stark’s machine is effective enough. Steve comes to consciousness believing that he is Steve Rogers, lost American hero, the warrior for a nation. Beside him is his best friend, James Buchanan Barnes, for whom he would risk anything. Even a fall from a great height that should have meant their end.

He remembers the train, the wind slicing through their clothes with icy daggers. He remembers Bucky holding his shield and getting blasted out of sight, the railing coming loose. He remembers Bucky shouting as he reaches for Steve. And Steve remembers diving after him. 

With these memories restored and forced to the forefront, it’s fuzzier when he thinks of Russia. He knows what they did, what they turned into. He knows he was half of the Dioscuri.

Yet that wasn’t Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers is lying bound to a bed beside his partner, his brain coming apart at the seams. Bucky's the same; Bucky's worse.

At night -- or in the morning, time has no meaning here -- all the time: Bucky sobs as he recounts their worst missions, mutters half to himself, and half to Steve. He’s eaten alive by guilt over what they’ve done, the betrayal of newly restored values. Steve is as horrified, but he’s slightly more stoic, for Bucky’s sake. Steve tries to assure him while his voice breaks. They sleep fitfully, calling out at phantoms.

The doctor and a hard-faced woman with flame-red hair attend them. Her voice is as persuasive as her expression is neutral. She coaxes as she debriefs them, learning everything they know. Steve can hear Russian lingering in her vowels, and wonders about her. 

Then it's time for the doctor's lessons on their personal affairs. He takes them through the past.

Tears leak from their eyes as they relearn.

* * *

Eventually they’re left alone at nights, in a small, bare, windowless apartment. Nothing to turn into a weapon. It’s a furnished cell.

It means leaving the chairs, and getting to sit side by side. Steve has no doubt they’re being monitored, but he pretends they have some privacy. The nights are all they have. They days are growing increasingly unbearable.

Sometimes they don’t talk. They just sit on the couch, touching at the knee and shoulder, until morning. Sometimes they hold hands. Sometimes they wreck the place, upending and destroying the few pieces of furniture. Sometimes they fight each other. Sometimes they fuck, desperate for grounding contact, uncaring of observation. Intimacy is their only constant. 

Sometimes they talk. 

“Does it matter?” Bucky asks one night into the silence. “Does it matter if it’s true? So what if we were their men first. So what, we have these memories now of being some hard-up immigrant kids. The fuck’s it matter? Might as well be lies. We were seventy years in Russia. I’ve killed--”

“Which way do you want to be?” asks Steve, and Bucky has no ready answer. 

There is another silence, and then Bucky says, “What do they want from us?”

“Same as the Russians.” Steve shrugs. Tony seems to be running an independent outfit, but there’s no doubt his interests align with America’s. Steve's hearing is enhanced. He's heard about the disintegration of a spy agency due to long-brooding Nazi infiltration. He suspects that this led to the drive to recover Steve and Bucky at all costs.

Bucky says, “Do you remember the war?”

They’ve been in many wars, but Steve knows, and he nods. 

“You found me,” says Bucky. “Now I know why I always trusted that you would. I thought I was good as dead, back then, and you found me. Came in looking like some kind of angel. Then there was that train. I should’ve died, but you jumped too. I remember thinking, what a crazy fool, and how I loved you. And then--” His voice falters as his throat tightens, and his eyes are bright with tears. He speaks rapidly. “I remember pain and cold and dark and light. Then I remember our lives in Russia, and what we did.” Come through grief, Bucky looks angry. “What do they mean by it, having us relive what’s dead and gone? That world is dust. It’s finished.”

Steve has felt a similar confusion -- why restore their old memories at all, why not try for a complete wipe, the way the Russians did? He knows American ethics are hardly above bending the rules for the procurement of supersoldiers. 

It would be more efficient to start them as blank slates in the patriotic image. Yet every day, Bruce and Natasha are unspooling more history, teaching lessons about their previous exploits, filling in the blanks where memory is faded. It seems a spectacular waste of time.

“Way I figure,” says Steve, who has thought about it a lot, “they think they can wear us down with this. One day it’ll click, and we’ll _want_ to follow orders. It’s a better kind of coercion than brainwashing, at least.”

“Guilt-washing,” mutters Bucky. “The men we were would’ve despised us, and they know it.”

“I don’t know,” Steve starts.

“I’m tired,” Bucky says. He means it, but they pretend like it’s about tonight. They pull out the sofabed and wrap around each other. “I wish we could go back.”

“To where?” 

Bucky has his lips pressed to the nape of Steve’s neck. “Mmm. South of France, maybe. Simpler times.”

“We can do what we did in the chateau there,” says Steve.

* * *

Steve goes to Tony Stark with an idea.

He and Tony seem to understand each other. It isn’t a friendship, but it’s a repartee. 

Steve has nothing to lose by being honest with Tony. Tony knows all and everything about them. He explains this during their “recovery.” He is aware of their involvement in his father’s death, and it sparked a lifelong obsession. 

He is the world’s foremost expert in the shadowy lore of the Dioscuri. He owns a broad collection of artifacts and memorabilia, including, somehow, Steve’s earliest leg prototype. He is the author of several academic and foreign policy papers about their activities. He founded a lab dedicated to developing weapons that could neutralize their bodies and machines that could hack their minds. 

They are the culmination of Tony’s life work. He’s cheerful as of late, observing. All his inventions have worked, he has saved and rebooted them. Tony is in the mood to indulge.

Even so, he blinks and tilts his head, seems to evaluate Steve from a new angle. “It would be dangerous. Memory’s an imprecise science. Neuroscience is more like alchemy. You might not remember anything, or you might wake up thinking you’re the Queen of Sheba. You never know.”

“But you could do it,” Steve prompts, using a word he has learned is catnip to Tony Stark. “Theoretically.”

Tony hums. “Theoretically, yes.” 

“It’s what I want.” Steve takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders. He meets Tony’s gaze straight-on, no hesitation. “It’s what Bucky needs, I think. Otherwise, we’re going to be useless to you.” 

“You’re progressing well,” argues Tony, folding his arms across his chest. “Bruce and Natasha say you’re more like your original selves every day.”

“It’s an act,” says Steve. “We’re good at acting. It’s tearing us in half. It’s like slow torture. Becoming Steve Rogers is the most painful injury I’ve ever received. And every day, I’m asked to exercise it.”

Tony’s expression turns inscrutable. “Well. When you put it like that.”

Steve shakes his head. “I’m sorry to sound ungrateful,” he says. “I should be glad you found us. We knew -- we always knew that something was off. We didn’t fit. We tried, though. We _tried_. We lived out a lifetime there. We became a word used to terrify children.” He swallows. “This is the only way for us now. Twenty-five years cannot outweigh seventy. We will end up a liability. It’s the only way. Tony, I know you can.”

"You understand what it is you're asking?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't," answers Steve.

“And Sergeant Barnes believes this to be the best course of action?” Tony is softening.

“He will,” says Steve.

* * *

“You’re a crazy fool,” says Bucky. “I love you.”

* * *

They sit down in chairs made just for them. This time Bruce flicks the switch while Tony monitors their vitals and manipulates their brainwaves. Natasha is against the procedure and is in a bar down the street. Steve holds Bucky’s metal hand until he forgets what it is. Then he lets go.

* * *

Wind whips Steve’s hair and ice stings his eyes. The railing breaks and Bucky falls screaming from the train. Fading from sight, he still reaches for Steve, and Steve does the only thing that he can do: he pushes off from the train and dives after.

* * *

Steve is cold all over, even under a warm blanket. He expects his eyelids to be frozen shut, but they open easily. He lies in a twin hospital bed, next to Bucky in an identical bed. 

They reach for each other across the space.

A man who looks like Howard Stark is hovering over them. He’s smiling. 

“How long were we under?” Steve demands to know. He has a ferocious headache and it feels like they’ve been under for a while. He remembers the freezing dark. Sleeping for decades. That can’t be right. Yet there’s nothing after the train. Falling is Steve’s last memory, and his most recent.

“My head hurts somethin’ awful,” says Bucky. He grins at the comely redhead who watches them with her arms crossed. “Are you a nurse, honey? Hell, I bet you’re head nurse. Tell ya what I’d do for an aspirin--”

“Where are we?” Steve has an endless wealth of questions. Nothing that his blurry eyes see makes sense: the sleek technology like something from the cinema, the strange civilian clothes. Their impossible limbs of metal. Steve might as well ask _when_ are they, and how, and why, and who.

“Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes,” says the man with Howard’s eyes. “Welcome to the twenty-first century. You're never going to believe how you got here.”


End file.
